Original Article

Brand communications in fashion categories using celebrity endorsement

Received: 12th September 2008

Angela Carroll
is a Senior Teaching Fellow at Leeds University Business School. Teaching and researching in the areas of branding and advertising, she has a particular interest in fashion marketing and branding.

ABSTRACT Brands have evolved to represent much more than the traditional markers of quality, trust and reliability to consumers. Brands have become embedded in the consumer psyche and offer consumers the opportunity for self-expression, self-realisation and self-identity. This effect is particularly strong in fashion categories. Barriers including cynicism and increasing advertising literacy threaten traditional approaches to brand communications, which have traditionally relied on verbal communications and storytelling. Celebrity endorsement is recognised as a potentially potent tool in communications, with celebrities viewed as more powerful than anonymous models and campaigns tending to verbalise the meaning of the celebrity in relation to the brand. This paper examines the use of celebrity endorsement in communications for fashion brands against the backdrop of a turbulent branding environment. The paper is conceptual in approach, drawing upon a range of literature in the area of branding, celebrity endorsement and fashion marketing. A shot from the 2004 Mui Mui print campaign featuring Maggie Gyllenhaal and the 2005 print Versace campaign featuring Madonna are used as illustrations. The analysis concludes that a new approach to celebrity campaigns has been adopted in fashion branding, reecting the need to move away from traditional campaigns and to focus more on visual signals rather than written cues. The need for an alternative approach to brand communications using celebrity endorsement is highlighted. This also reects limitations of traditional theoretical models used to explain the endorsement process. The paper offers an original and contemporary insight into celebrity endorsement and fashion marketing.

Journal of Brand Management; (2009) 17, 146158. doi:10.1057/bm.2008.42; published online 19 December 2008 Keywords: celebrity endorsement; branding; fashion marketing; advertising; marketing communications
Correspondence: Angela Carroll Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, Maurice Keyworth Building, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK E-mail: ac@lubs.leeds.ac.uk

DEVELOPMENT OF BRANDING
Brands have come to be regarded as important marketing components to manufac-

turers and a rich source of information to consumers. The benets of branding are well documented. To the manufacturer,

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brands offer a means of identication for ease of handling and tracking, legal protection1 and the ability to be distinctive.2 In addition, branding is a sign of quality and can be used to secure competitive advantage and increased nancial returns and high customer loyalty.3 For the consumer, the brand functions as a means of identication, reduces search costs, effort and perceived risk, thereby facilitating a shortcut in decision making, and represents a guarantee of quality and reliability.46 Products evolved into brands in order to create differentiation in increasingly competitive markets by offering customers something extra over and above the functional attributes and associated potential benets. Thus, the term added value was used to distinguish products from brands.7 Traditionally, this term focused on rational and economic features such as quality, consistency and reliability, with consumers prepared to pay that little bit extra for a brand. Brand names thus became hallmarks, which resulted in consumers placing trust in brands and forming bonds with manufacturers.8 Increasing competition, coupled with the perceived potential benets of branding to manufacturers and an increased volume of brand-based advertising, resulted in a proliferation of choice for consumers in many markets. Consequently, the scope for differentiation became limited, and it could not be assumed that consumers were interested in a product because of some combination of basic ingredients.9 The emphasis shifted to symbolic, emotional features that generated more socio-psychological associations in the minds of consumers.10,11 This was recognised as applying particularly to brands in the mature stage of their life cycle, identied by Murphy4 as the image stage where functional advantages have been eroded and symbolic values become more important in differentiating the brand. Therefore, it was recognised that a brand image could be grafted onto the

product through advertising in order to create memorable and immortal brands.12 Differentiation could be achieved over time by, for example, lifestyle advertising.5 Thus, increasingly there was no information about the product, only the type of people who might be inclined to use the product.13 It thus became accepted that developing, communicating and maintaining a brands image is critical to the long-term success of a brand,14 with the core activity of many companies transformed from the production of things to the production of images.15

BRANDING FROM A MANAGERIAL PERSPECTIVE

Traditionally, branding was viewed primarily as a marketing function within the business. Increasingly, however, it has come to be viewed as being at the heart of business activity, embedded throughout the organisation,11 and as an asset that needs to be correctly managed.16 Related to this, the concept of brand equity has evolved, which stresses the potential stakes invested by companies in brands.17 Discussions highlight both the strategic importance of brands and the potential pitfalls of inadequate brand management. As a result, a number of models that conceptualise the brand management process have been developed.16 Keller18 emphasises the need for a structured approach based on sound research in order to manage brands strategically and to generate optimum value both in terms of asset valuation and marketing efciency. To achieve this effectively, value for the brand has to be created and managers must have the knowledge and expertise to exploit this value by developing protable brand strategies. Creating value and building brand equity requires managers to develop favourable, strong and unique brand associations via an integrated approach. Underpinning this process, however, is the

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assumption that consumers develop brand knowledge, the dynamics of which must be understood by practitioners if strategies are to be effective. Keller18 denes brand knowledge as comprising brand awareness (brand recognition and recall) and brand image, which is reected in the favourability, strength and uniqueness of the cluster of associations held about the brand in consumer memory. Therefore, the signicance of brands can only be seen through the eyes of the beholder.6 The consumer plays an important role in the building of powerful brands that in effect are coproduced by rms and consumers.1 Brand equity becomes customer-based, to which the task of managing the constellation of meaning associated with a brand is key.17 Equity is thus measured less in relation to quantitative benchmarks and more in relation to customer perception. If consumers have high awareness and favourable associations towards a brand then equity is positive. Branding strategy becomes less about market share and more about minds and emotional share.19 Therefore, from a managerial perspective, branding is a critical core component to success and requires a strategic, structured and integrated approach. Effective management of brands requires a long-term customer-based perspective, and critical to this is an understanding of the relationship between consumers and brands in order to build favourable, strong and unique associations.

BRAND AND CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP

To explore the link between brands and the consumer psyche, Belk20 considers the concept of the extended self, which comprises self (me) and possessions (mine), suggesting that unknowingly, intentionally or unintentionally we regard our possessions as reective and as part of ourselves. They provide a mantle that enables individuals to present

themselves and garner feedback that may be less forthcoming from others who are reluctant to respond so openly to the unextended self. Consumers therefore turn to brands less as bundles of utility but more as badges that convey social meaning and that have the power to generate social acceptance.21 Indeed, OShaughnessy and OShaughnessy22 assert that consumers seek positional products to signify group membership and to mark their position. Thus, brand consumption has evolved into a process of self-reference, self-identity and self-articulation. Fundamental to the role played by brands is the construct of the self-concept. Onkvisit and Shaw9 dene this as the outcome of a learned, continuous and active process that consolidates the ideas and feelings we hold in relation to other people in a socially determined frame of reference. We achieve self-consistency via brand consumption, purchasing brands that we perceive to be similar to our selfconcept. Dened as image congruence hypothesis, this suggests that brands perform a function of self-enhancement whereby consumers form perceptions about brands and compare these to their own value system, selecting brands that match the closest. Furthermore, self-concept is viewed as multidimensional (actual self, subjective self, ideal self and social self) and this can result in a signicant difference between the way an individual actually is and the way he/she perceives himself/herself. Therefore, brand consumption provides an opportunity for individuals to express themselves not as they are, but as how they would like to be or be seen, and this can further enhance social belonging via group membership:
They (consumers) dress up, now as skiers who never ski, now as pilots who cannot y, now as soldiers who never see army life. In search for the expression of individualism bound up in a fantasy status. OShaughnessy and OShaughnessy22

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The impact of image congruence may, however, be tempered by the type of product and may be less apparent in product categories that are not viewed as vehicles for self-enhancement. The context or situation may also be inuential. It is acknowledged that when a high-social-consequences context is evoked, image congruence will have a greater effect,3 and when purchasing socially consumed products individuals are more likely affected by ideal congruence than actual congruence.23 Furthermore, individuals differ in the extent to which they observe and control their expressive behaviour and self-presentation. Snyder24 proposed a scale to capture this, identied as the level of self-monitoring. High selfmonitors are sensitive to social cues and constantly change to t into surroundings. Low self-monitors lack the ability or motivation to regulate their self-presentation, and their behaviour is more likely to reect their inner state. Brands are therefore seen as playing an integral and complex role in the construction of the self.

TURBULENT TIMES FOR BRANDS

The potency of branding has been seen to have benets to many organisations beyond the traditional commercial boundaries, including schools and public places, with the result that a brandscape has emerged. Increasing awareness and realisation of this brandscape coupled with unprecedented globalisation of brands has provoked an anti-branding backlash from social commentators, journalists, academics and the general public. Klein25 represents a brandbaiting genre, lambasting high-prole brands and accusing brands of invading every crevice of life. Advertising is seen as playing a manipulative and merciless role in the emerging brandscape, seeking to transform customers into the personication of brand identity. Klein25 claims for example that Tommy Hilger has transformed customers into walking, talking, life-sized Tommy

dolls, mummied in fully branded Tommy worlds. Surrounding this, a subculture known as culture jamming has developed, involving forms of media sabotage including billboard alteration and remixed logos. This is symbolised by the Canadian magazine Adbusters, which features articles, spoof advertisements for brands such as Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilger, activist commentary from around the world and promotion of protest campaigns like Buy Nothing Day and TV Turnoff Week. In addition, pockets of the general public have been mobilised into protest. The practice of blogging has drawn attention to the vagaries of brand advertising, with individuals posting their views on web pages and inviting commentary to the extent that virtual communities have formed, their purpose to offer and share critical appraisal. The social meaning conveyed by brands has, in some instances, been subverted by consumers who have hijacked the brand meaning and reworked it. For example, Burberry has become a symbol of chav culture. Chavs represent aggressive young adults who wear branded sports and casual clothing, are often assumed to be unemployed or in low paid jobs and to engage in petty crime. The sheer volume of messages transmitted daily is also impacting on branding. To live in the West today, and increasingly other parts of the world, is to inhabit a message-saturated environment.22 Besieged by branding messages perpetrated by advertising, consumers are screening out messages as if equipped with marketing radar: the ability to identify an incoming message as marketing contrived to manipulate them into buying something of questionable value or relevance.26 In addition, there is evidence that some individuals have become sophisticated consumers of advertising and brand messages, whereby advertising literacy can be seen to convey a form of empowerment.27

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A further dimension to this debate is offered by Salzer-Morling and Strannegard,15 who suggest that the classic approach to the positioning of brands through advertising has tended to focus on the use of stories to convey brand values, with brand building conceptualised as a narrative/verbal process primarily concerned with cognition, meaning and persuasion. If, however, markets have become saturated with brands, communications have become saturated with brand storytelling. It has become even more difcult to achieve differentiation and a distinct image as brands compete against a cacophony of stories. The authors suggest that the use of visual signals may currently be more effective where the aim is to create impressions rather than to convey meaning. This aesthetic approach is concerned with feeling, intuition and immersion, whereby consumers become engaged and involved with brands and brand messages. In a more visual and sensory branding environment, consumers are left to ponder and make sense of signs, and the brandscape becomes a backdrop for aesthetic expression. Consumers thus interpret and realise signs via a process of aesthetic reexivity. The above discussion has highlighted a number of challenges that may impair the successful implementation of the carefully crafted brand strategy.

CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENT
Celebrity endorsement has become a popular approach in the branding process both in terms of gaining and keeping attention and in creating favourable associations leading to positive brand knowledge and distinct brand images. This works fundamentally by creating a congruent image between the brand and the consumer.28 The use of celebrity endorsers has increased to approximately 25 per cent of all advertisements in the United Kingdom and United States and approximately 70 per cent of

all advertisements in Japan.29 Celebrities can command large fees for celebrity endorsement contracts, making this an attractive and lucrative career dimension. The benets of using celebrity endorsement to support a brand strategy can include increased attention, image polishing, brand introduction, brand repositioning and the potential to underpin global campaigns.30 Overall research points to accumulated positive inuence over the audiences recall and purchase intentions,31 with celebrities deemed more effective than using a typical consumer or expert.32 Pringle33 asserts that successful celebrity/brand partnerships have resulted in signicant gains in income for brand owners. In addition, he argues that macro factors such as the need for interactivity, the degree of control exercised by consumers over messages received and increasing media fragmentation render celebrity endorsement a valid strategy. A celebrity endorser is dened as any individual who enjoys public recognition and who uses this recognition on behalf of a consumer good by appearing with it in an advertisement. Ohanian34 stresses that to be truly effective, celebrities chosen as endorsers should be knowledgeable, experienced and qualied in order to be perceived as an expert in the category. Two models were originally identied to explain the process of celebrity endorsement. The Source Credibility model35 suggests that the effectiveness of the message depends on the degree of expertise and trustworthiness conveyed by the celebrity (source). Trust is reected in the condence in the general believability of the endorser and message. Expertise refers to product knowledge and thus the validity of claims.36 Some authors maintain that the widespread use of large fees does not generate trustworthiness,34 whereas others cite evidence of correspondent bias in western cultures, whereby consumers believe the celebrity likes the product regardless of fees paid.37 The Source

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Attractiveness model38 suggests that consumers generally have a more positive response to attractive people and the effectiveness of the message depends on the similarity, familiarity and liking of the endorser. Therefore, attractive celebrities may be more successful in changing beliefs and generating purchase intentions. Ohanian34 points out, however, that most celebrities are attractive and hence the overall impact of this variable may be weak. In addition, attractiveness may be only relevant for categories that are related to attractiveness. Overall evidence based on studies suggests that perceived expertise is the most important variable, increasing persuasiveness above and beyond the effects of attractiveness and, in particular, trustworthiness.34,37,39 McCracken,40 highlighting the limitations of the source models, puts forward a three-stage Meaning Transfer model, which has been adopted as the model that comes closest to conceptualising the process. This meaning, used to describe what a celebrity represents, is derived from the professional persona and environment of the celebrity. For example, consumers attach meanings and associations to celebrities as a result of their roles in television, lm, the military and athletics (stage 1). This meaning is then transferred to the product when the celebrity is seen in an advertisement (stage 2). Some of the meanings of the celebrity become synonymous with the product. In the nal stage (stage 3), meaning moves from the product to the consumer. Endorsers are thus seen as conduits of cultural meaning transfer, and congurations of desirable cultural meanings become part of the brand.3 Consumers take possession of meanings and put them to work in the construction of their notions of the self and the world. Thus, celebrities are seen as super-consumers: exemplary gures who have created the clear and coherent powerful selves that everyone seeks and so strong that even a

momentary glimpse of them in an advertisement instantly conveys meaning.40 Viewed as much more potent than anonymous models, celebrities represent ideal vehicles for self-identity and selfarticulation. The effectiveness of a celebrity endorsement strategy may be mediated by variables such as the celebrity/product t, the product and usage occasion, societal/cultural conditions and the volume of repetitive advertisements featuring celebrities. Evaluations are enhanced where the characteristics of the brand are congruent with the image portrayed by the celebrity.36,41 To conceptualise this, Kamins42 developed the matchup hypothesis, which emphasises the need for celebrities to be evaluated and selected in the context of the brand values and image. In relation to product categories, Batra and Homer3 refer to the existence of consumer schema for different products, which may inuence the degree of receptivity to messages delivered by celebrities. Products high in psychological or social risk may provide the strongest evidence for the impact of celebrities on message transmission.42 Differences in response to celebrity endorsement may vary across countries and cultures. Silvera and Austad37 note that the celebrity system is primarily an American cultural enterprise and that Americans identify especially strongly with celebrities and are thus more willing to accept and internalise endorsement messages. Consumers from other cultures may not show correspondent bias, believing that endorsers like the product less than most people. This was evident in a sample from Norway, where cultural norms based on Janteloven suggest that an individual should never try to be different or consider himself more valuable than others.37 The volume of endorsement advertising in a particular country can result in jaded consumers who believe that celebrities merely hawk products for a fee without using or

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believing in the product,43 reecting trends discussed above. This effect is heightened by both multiple endorsement campaigns and negative publicity surrounding some celebrities.44 Advertising campaigns using celebrities to support brand strategy have in general tended to be repetitive, high-prole and loud extravaganzas in which the celebrity features prominently and directly.45 If celebrities own the meanings they have created on the public stage,40 then companies take full advantage of this by parading the same advertisement across all media frequently, and engaging in public displays of involvement. In addition, the congruence between the celebrity and the brand is obvious, with press releases often used to highlight why a celebrity was chosen, and the characteristics of the celebrity reected directly in the advertisement, displaying verbal or written cues prominently. This renders the consumers task of processing meaning transfer easier, as the effort in grasping the essential similarity between the elements in the product and the celebrity are explicit. As highlighted by McCracken,40 the consumers ability or predisposition to see that the cultural meanings contained in the advertisement are also contained in the brand is enhanced. Repetition of the actual advertisement, extensive press coverage of the endorsement contract and personal appearances on behalf of the brand can lead to a celebrity becoming as famous (if not more) as a spokesperson for the brand than as a performer or champion in their eld.

FASHION BRANDS
The preceding discussion is relevant to fashion categories and luxury brands in particular. High fashion is readily associated with branding.46 The process is often very successful as measured by consumer recognition levels, the premium prices that these

command and the extent to which these brands can be applied across a range of product categories.47 As with other categories, traditional advertising may be losing impetus as consumers decrypt messages.48 Highlighting the competitive nature of fashion markets, Auty and Elliot21 discuss the need for effective advertising using symbolic cues in order to create distinctive brand images and associations. Fashion brands are seen as strong vehicles for expressing self-concept (actual or aspirational), achieving image congruence and signifying group membership.49 McCracken and Roth50 refer to the use of clothing as a code, a form of language that allows a message to be created and (selectively) understood. There is some evidence to suggest that high self-monitors demonstrate negative attitudes towards unbranded fashion goods, and use brands as discriminators between themselves as belongers who have chosen to interpret the social code implied by the brand and those who remain aloof, threatening their social identity.21 This extends to very young consumers who use fashion brands to feel cooler and older and to conform with peer groups so they do not feel left out.51 It also highlights the high social consequences and risk potentially associated with fashion brands. The cults of celebrity and fashion are interwoven, reecting Hollywood and the red carpet phenomenon whereby fashion designers court lm stars and celebrities to wear their brands at premiers and award shows such as the Oscars. Although these are elitist events, everyone has access via television, magazines or the Internet. Versace gained much publicity when Elizabeth Hurley wore a low-cut black dress held together by safety pins (dubbed that dress) to the premier of Four Weddings and A Funeral and when Jennifer Lopez wore a diaphanous green dress split to the navel at the 2005 Grammy Awards. Product placement in lms has also strengthened

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the link between celebrities and fashion. Despite designers dressing lm stars for years (Givenchy dressed Audrey Hepburn), American Gigolo featuring Richard Gere was one of the rst lms to utilise product placement, by featuring Armani clothes, almost as an extension of the main character. Armani sales rocketed after the lm release in 1980 and since then Georgio Armani has cultivated a fruitful relationship with Hollywood, providing the wardrobe for over 300 lms.48 The trend has spilled over into television, with shows such as Sex and the City and The OC featuring designer brands. This trend frequently provides material for features in celebrity and fashion magazines. In terms of endorsement, Moore and Birtwistle52 identify the role played by this factor in luxury fashion branding, although endorsement can take forms outside traditional endorsement contracts. In relation to advertising, historically professional models have been used in campaigns, often shot by high-prole photographers such as Mario Testino, Steven Meisel and Patrick Demarchelier. The model Kate Moss featured in a landmark series of advertisements by Demarchelier for Calvin Klein in the 1990s, and has more recently featured in campaigns for Burberry and Channel. Gianni Versace played a prominent role in creating the supermodel craze by agreeing to pay excessive fees in order to get the best models, as reected in the infamous quotation by the model Linda Evangelista in Vogue: we dont wake up for less than $10 000 a day.48 It is generally acknowledged that the supermodel era, as reected in the bling-bling culture of the 1990s, is over. Film stars have begun to replace models on the front of fashion magazines such as Vogue, and now feature as brand endorsers along with other celebrities such as pop stars and footballers. According to Carroll,45 in 2003 a new wave of brand campaigns featuring celebri-

ties appeared in fashion/luxury goods markets. Celebrities were presented almost as the anonymous models referred to by McCracken.40 Gap was one of the rst brands to use celebrities as models in a fashion shoot. The advertisements featured a range of celebrities mainly from the acting profession wearing Gap clothes in a series of short-lived commercials shown on television, billboards and printed media. Although the television versions had a background soundtrack, the advertisements were characterised generally by their use of highly visual cues and limited verbal cues. The fashion shoot approach has subsequently been used by a number of companies including Mulberry (Anna Friel and David Thewliss), Marc Jacobs (Soa Coppola), Asprey (Kiera Knightley) and Ermenegildo Zegni (Adrian Brody). On glancing at the advertisements, it would be easy to pass over the scene as just another regular fashion shoot. The 2004 autumn/winter Miu Miu print campaign featuring Maggie Gyllenhaal (see Appendix A) and the 2005 spring/ summer Versace print campaign featuring Madonna (see Appendix B) are contrasting examples of this genre. Miu Miu is described as the younger, funkier sister to Pradas more intellectual brand,53 but shares the same understated and low key image. Miuccia Prada, head of the company and chief designer, stays in the background and lets the clothes do the talking. Maggie, sister of the actor Jake Gyllenhaal is a low-prole actress whose credits to date include the edgy but limited-release lm Secretary, in which she plays a masochistic employee who enjoys being spanked by her boss. Described as kooky and hip she is noted for steering clear of brash consumerism and the material trappings of stardom,54 and therefore represents a good match-up for the brand. The advertisement represents a personal, eclectic and autobiographical style, with the clothes and accessories featured

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representing her possessions which convey a sense of self, strengthened by the inclusion of a cat, perhaps a treasured companion. Versace, in contrast to Mui Mui, presented an outrageous propensity for chic glamour, with a mix of avant-garde and ostentatious extremes created by the late Gianni Versace. The brand dened the late twentieth century culture of splash and spend.55 Following the murder of Gianni in 1997, the brand image struggled in the quieter, more individualistic and spiritual era of the 2000s, with the company declared technically bankrupt in 2004. Under the management of Giannis sister Donatella, the brand has now stabilised, however, and has switched image to a softer more restrained look exuding quality and elegance, which is supported by use of neutral colours and drapier silhouettes rather than slashed dresses adorned with acid yellow and green mosaics. Madonna, the original material girl with her reputation for reecting dark, pseudo masochistic places in her work, has herself toned down her image in private, with a stable family life and house in the English countryside. Nonetheless, her capacity to take the apparently obvious, push it, subvert it, make it all about sex then twist it some more until you are not sure if it is pastiche or porn remains.56 This represents a good match-up for the Versace brand, which wants to remove the excesses but retain the selfassured sexuality. The advertisement featured presents a Madonna dressed as sexy secretary or power executive super-vixen, depending on interpretation, with her feet up on a glass desk. It is an intriguing context in which to feature both the Versace brand, which shares no associations with work and ofce, and Madonna, a professional dancer and singer who constantly pushes back boundaries through her craft. The approach of these advertisements represents a major change in style for both brands, which have tended to use profes-

sional models in their campaigns. Both examples were part of campaigns featuring different shots of the celebrity, which were changed frequently, unlike many endorsement campaigns in which the same shot features prominently and repetitively. In addition, the brands moved on relatively quickly to new endorsers, with Demi Moore and then Halle Berry for Versace, and Kim Basinger, Lou Doillan and Selma Blair for Mui Mui. This represents a departure from the usual approach whereby a celebrity becomes the face of a brand. Press releases were kept to a minimum and did not seek to explain the association between the brand and the celebrity; hence, there was very little warning to facilitate understanding of the advertisements. On rst glance, it would be easy to pass over the identity of the celebrity in the advertisements. This is perhaps to be expected in the case of Maggie Gyllenhaal, who courts a selective following, but is more surprising in the case of Madonna, one of the worlds most famous women. Nonetheless, contributors to online fashion forums and blogs report not recognising her initially:
I didnt realise it was her to begin with.57 My friend asked me if it was Madonna in the photo and I said it wasnt.58

The advertisements are both layered in subtle and slightly ambiguous meaning and require more than the momentary glimpse referred to by McCracken40 in order to register what is portrayed. This concurs with evidence presented by Batra and Homer,3 which suggests that beliefs and personality assertions of endorsers need not be verbally and explicitly stated in advertisements, but can be inferred by recipients. The lack of written cues and copy contribute further to the lack of a corporately controlled story. Thus, the meaning transfer process is potentially impaired, with sensory involvement

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and immersion alluded to by Salzer-Morling and Strannegard15 required in order for the process to take place. Thus, it could be argued that the advertisements represent a form of aesthetic reexivity: visual canvasses of aesthetic expression that offer the intrinsic rewards of self-realisation and self-belonging to those who gure them out.

CONCLUSION
Brands have evolved into multifaceted constructs with which consumers potentially have complex relationships stemming from the self-reective capacity of individual brands. This is particularly true of fashion categories. Careful management of brand image that impacts on brand associations stored in consumer memory is critical to a successful strategy. Advertising is used as an important tool in brand image-creation, and there has been an increase in the volume of campaigns using celebrities to endorse brands, with cultural meaning transferred from celebrity to brand to consumer. This process has been enhanced via explicit reference to the meaning of the celebrity in the advertisement and supporting publicity. Celebrity campaigns have traditionally been highly repetitive and long-running, with opportunities for personal appearances and associated benets. Publicity generated by anti-branding campaigners, coupled with the sheer volume of advertisements containing branding messages, has invoked some cynicism and a tendency to perceptually screen out advertisements. In addition, experience as a result of cumulative exposure has led to some degree of advertising literacy, whereby individuals have become adept at deconstructing the message and empowered to distance themselves from advertisings inuence. Thus, it has become increasingly difcult for brand owners to be condent that brand messages have been successfully transmitted via advertising. The emphasis on storytelling and narrative

via verbal cues in brand advertising has contributed towards the impression of message overload in the brandscape and the level of advertising literacy. A possible response to this by brand owners in an attempt to make messages stand out and get through is a shift towards visual images and cues. Such advertisements require involvement and immersion on the part of the consumer in order to interpret the image and internalise the implications for selfidentity. This can be viewed as a form of aesthetic reexivity. To achieve this using celebrity advertising requires a different approach to the traditional blockbuster campaign, where only a momentary glimpse of the advertisement is required in order for meaning to be transferred, provided a good match-up is achieved. Interpretation of the advertisement becomes more challenging as the reliance on visual images renders the meaning of the celebrity in the context of the brand more ambiguous.

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APPENDIX A
PRESS ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MIU MIU
See Figure A1

Figure A1:

Miu Miu/Maggie Gyllenhaal, Vogue Magazine, London, Conde Nast Publications, September 2004, pp. 2627.

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Carroll

APPENDIX B
PRESS ADVERTISEMENT FOR VERSACE
See Figure B1

Figure B1:

Versace/Madonna, Vogue Magazine, London, Conde Nast Publications, March 2005, pp. 2627.

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